200th Year Ruger – The ExhaustNotes Blog

A .458 Win Mag No. 1

By Joe Berk

About 20 years ago I bought a .458 Ruger No. 1, but until recently, I had not shot it.

I first saw a .458 No. 1 when I was in the Army at Fort Bliss, Texas. Bob Starkey (who owned Starkey’s Guns in El Paso) had one, and that rifle was stunning. I had just bought a .45 70 No. 1 from Bob and I didn’t have the funds to buy the .458. But man, I sure wanted it.

Bob Starkey’s personal .458 Win Mag was a custom rifle built on a 1903 Springfield action. I asked Bob what firing it was like. “Well,” he said, “you’re glad when it’s over.” Call me a glutton for punishment, but I immediately knew two things:

- - I had to have a .458, and
  - Someday I would.

I’ve since owned several .458 Win Mags, including a Winchester Model 70 African (long gone), a Browning Safari Grade (it was a beautiful rifle based on a Mauser action; I’m sorry I let that one go), a Remington 798 (also based on a Mauser action), and my Ruger Model 77 Circassian. Every one of those .458 rifles was surprisingly accurate. If you reload and you’ve ever thought of buying a .458, trust me on this: Take the plunge. With cast or jacketed bullets and light loads, .458 Winchester Magnum rifles are very easy to shoot.

Back to the main attraction: My .458 No. 1. Technically, the Ruger .458 No. 1 is called a Ruger No. 1H. The H designates what Ruger calls their Tropical rifle; I’m guessing the Tropical’s heavier barrel means the H stands for heavy. The .458 No. 1 is big, it is heavy, and it just looks like it means business. You might say it’s the Norton Scrambler of elephant guns.

When I saw this No. 1 advertised on the Gunbroker.com auction site, it pushed all the buttons for me. It was a .458, it had beautiful walnut, it had the older red recoil pad (a desirable feature), it had the 200th year inscription, and it had the early Ruger No. 1 checkering pattern.

Every once in a while over the last two decades I’d haul the .458 out of the safe to admire it, but I had never fired it. I was thinking about that a couple of weeks ago, and I decided my failure to get the No. 1 on the range was a character flaw I needed to correct.

With my light .458 Win Mag reloads, the No. 1 grouped about 12 inches above the point of aim at 50 yards. When I examined the rifle more closely, I saw that the rear sight was abnormally tall compared to the rear sights on my other No. 1 Rugers, and it was already in its lowest setting. Evidently the previous owner discovered the same thing (i.e., the rifle shoots high), he took the rear sight all the way down, and then he sold it when it still shot too high. Lucky for me.

My first thought was that the forearm was exerting undue upward pressure on the barrel. I loosened the screw securing the forearm to address this and tried firing it again, but it made no difference. It wasn’t the forearm that was causing the rifle to shoot high.

I realized I needed either a lower rear sight or a taller front sight. The rear sight was already bottomed out, so I couldn’t go any lower with it. I think Ruger put the taller rear sight on the .458 to compensate for the recoil with factory ammo. I have some 500-grain factory ammo so I could fire a few rounds and find out, but I don’t want to beat myself up. The heavier and faster factory ammo bullets get out of the barrel faster than my lighter and slower loads. With factory ammo the muzzle doesn’t rise as much before the bullet exits the bore, so with factory ammo the rear sight has to be taller to raise the point of impact. At least that’s what I think is going on. The bottom line is the factory ammo shoots lower than my lighter, slower loads.

The factory .458 load is a 500-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2000 feet per second. Those loads are designed to DRT an elephant (DRT stands for “Dead Right There”). My needs are different: I want a load that makes small groups in paper targets while drawing ooohs and ahs from everyone on the range (you know, because I am shooting small groups with a .458 Win Mag). Doing so with lighter loads on paper targets keeps both me and Dumbo happy.

If you are reading this and thinking I was obsessing about this situation, you would be correct. I don’t know why, but when a gun is misbehaving I tend to get tunnel vision. I continued to look at the rear sight and started thinking. I knew I needed it to be lower by about a tenth of an inch, so I thought perhaps instead of using a sight picture where the front bead was concentric with the U in the rear sight blade, I could rest the bottom of the front sight’s gold bead lower in the rear sight. I fired five shots with a normal sight picture and then another five with my “lower in the rear sight” concept, and son of a gun, the two groups were right on top of each other. Both were still about a foot above the point of aim (which was 6:00 on the bullseye). What they say about peep sights is true, I guess. Your eye will naturally center the front sight as you squeeze the trigger.

Out there on the range, I kept thinking about this as I stared at the rear sight. It was a nice day and I was the only guy out there. An idea hit me. The rear sight blade is removable (it’s held in place by two screws that loosen to move the blade up or down), and the rear sight leaf (to which the blade attaches) has a much wider and deeper U. Could I remove the blade altogether and use the wider and lower U of the rear sight frame as the rear sight notch?

I had my gunsmith’s tool kit with me and I took the two tiny screws out (the smallest screwdriver in the kit did the trick). I was sweating bullets (pardon the pun) about dropping either of those screws (I knew if I did I’d never find them), but the screwdriver blade is magnetized and it held onto them. With the sight blade removed, I fired five rounds, and voilà, I was in the black. I fired another five, and they went right on top of the first five. The group size, with open sights at 50 yards from a .458 Win Mag, wasn’t too bad. In fact, it was essentially identical to the group size with the rear sight blade in place.

I knew I needed to lower the rear sight, but by how much? The Ruger’s sight radius is 17 inches (the distance from the front sight to the rear sight), and the distance to the target (on which the group was about 12 inches high) was 50 yards. Remember when your junior high school teacher told you that algebra would come in handy someday and you didn’t believe him? Well, today was that day for me. Here’s how it shakes out:

(distance rear sight must be lowered)/(sight radius) =
(12 inches)/(5o yards)

Solving for the distance the rear sight must be lowered (let’s call it x), we have:

x = (12 inches)*(17 inches)/(50 yards*36 inches/yard) = 0.1133 inches

My first thought was to call the Williams Gun Sight company because I assumed Williams made the sights for Ruger. I’ve worked with Williams before and I knew they have excellent customer service. When I called them, I learned that they didn’t make the sights for my Ruger. The guy who took my call had a reference document and he told me that in the early No. 1 days, Marble made the sights. I called Marble, but I struck out there, too. The Marble’s sight base is different than the Ruger’s. While all this was going on, I examined the rear sight more closely and I saw a small Lyman stamp on it. So I contacted Lyman. Their guy told me they haven’t made sights for the Ruger No. 1 in decades.

At that point in my quest to find a lower rear sight, I was up to Strike 3 or maybe Strike 4, so I called Ruger directly. The pleasant young lady I spoke with at Ruger told me they could not sell me a lower replacement sight for my .458 No. 1; they can only sell what originally came on the rifle. So I told them I wanted a replacement rear sight for my .30 06 No. 1 (it has a much lower rear sight). I had to give them a serial number for my .30 06 (which I did), and they were happy to go with that. Ruger charged me $20 for the replacement.

After a week’s wait, I had my lower rear sight from Ruger. I drifted the old rear sight out with a brass punch and I installed the new one. The distance from the top of the old (tall) sight to the sight base is 0.505 inches. The distance from the top of the new (lower) sight to its base is 0.392 inches. Subtracting one from the other (i.e., 0.505 inches – 0.392 inches), I found the new rear sight was exactly 0.113 inches lower than the old rear sight. My calculation was that the rear sight needed to be lower 0.1133 inches lower. The fact that my calculation is almost exactly equal to how much lower the new rear sight is has to be coincidental. I just love it when things work out. Mathematically, that is. You might be wondering how the new rear sight worked out on the range. Quite well, thank you.

The first three shots through the .458 Winchester Magnum Ruger No. 1 with the new rear sight at 50 yards, without making any sight adjustments. I simply drifted the rear sight into the No. 1’s quarter rib and centered it by eye. All three shots would be scored in the X-ring.

You know, if I had mounted a scope all the above would have gone away. The scope would probably have enough adjustment range to compensate for the rifle shooting high. But a scope seems somehow out of place on an elephant gun, and I like shooting with open sights. I’ve read a lot of comments from older guys describing how they need a scope to cope with their aging eyes. I’m certainly an older guy with the inevitable attendant vision degradation, but I’ve gone the opposite way. I find shooting with open sights makes me feel younger, and getting tight groups with open sights is its own reward. I first learned to shoot a rifle using open sights, and doing so again makes me feel like a kid.

Next up will be trying a few shots at 100 yards. Stay tuned.

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ExNotes Product Review: 4×12 Bushnell Banner Scope

By Joe Berk

Bushnell scopes have been around forever and they are kind of a generic scope…just as effective as the name brand medication but at a fraction of the cost. I’ve had several that came with rifles I bought, but I never bought a new one until recently. I’m glad I did. I bought the Bushnell Banner 4×12 and it’s a great scope.

The 4×12 Bushnell Banner scope. It’s a surprisingly good scope for well under $100.

The story goes like this: I won a Ruger No. 1 in 243 Winchester in an online auction about 15 years ago. The rifle was a 200th year Liberty model, it looked good, and I stashed it in the safe. I shot it for the first time a month ago, and that’s when I learned I had an accuracy issue. The Ruger came with a period-correct 4×12 Weaver (long since discontinued), which provided plenty of magnification but my groups were embarrassing.

The .243 Ruger No. 1 on the range. The rifle is wearing the new Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope in this photo.

Let’s go tangential for a second or two: The “4×12” I use above refers to the scope’s variable magnification, which ranges from 4 times actual size to 12 times actual size. With a good scope (one offering optical clarity), you can see the bullet holes in the target at 100 yards when the scope is zoomed up to 12 times actual size.

The Ruger American Bicentennial inscription. It’s on all Rugers made in 1976.

For hunting, I always prefer a straight 4-power scope (i.e., a nonvariable) because of its wider field of view and the fact that I can still hold a pretty tight group with a 4-power scope. Magnifying the target four times is good enough for hunting. That’s especially true on a deer-sized target, but it’s good enough even on rabbits. I’ve sent a lot of Texas jacks to the promised land with a simple 4-power Redfield on my .30 06 Ruger No. 1.

The scope companies pretty much all say that you should keep a variable scope at low magnification to acquire the target, and then zoom it up for a more precise aim. But I’ll tell you that’s just marketing hype, it’s laughable, and it’s a lot of baloney. When I’m hunting and I see a game animal, the adrenal glands go into overdrive. It’s all I can do to remember to take the safety off, and I can remember a few times when I forgot to do that. The thought of seeing a target, acquiring it in the scope at low magnification, taking the safety off, lowering the rifle, increasing the zoom, raising the rifle again, reacquiring the target, and then squeezing the trigger is ludicrous. Nope, for hunting purposes, a straight 4-power scope is the way to go for me. On the other hand, when I’m on the range, I just leave the variable scopes at their highest magnification. In short, I don’t need a zoomable scope. But the marketing guys know better, I guess, and that means they weather vane to variable scopes. That’s pretty much all you see these days.

But I digress. Let’s get back to the main attraction, and that’s the new Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope on my .243 No. 1 rifle. This all started when I loaded some brass good buddy Johnnie G sent my way. The rifle would not consistently hold a zero, and even when it did, it shot grapefruit-sized groups. My thought was that the old 4×12 Weaver scope that came with the rifle had conked out, so I replaced it with another inexpensive scope I had laying around (an older Bushnell Banner 3×9 scope that is probably 50 years old). While mounting the older 3×9 Bushnell, I checked both Ruger rings (front and rear) to make sure they were secure. They seemed to be, but they were not (more on that below). I took the No. 1 (now wearing the older model Bushnell Banner) to the range. The accuracy situation did not improve.

The 4-12X Weaver scope that came with the 200th year .243 Ruger No. 1. That scope may still be good; I’ll have to mount it on another rifle to confirm that.

So I removed the older 3×9 Bushnell and the Ruger rings. That’s when I discovered that the front ring was not secure. It had felt like it was, but it fooled me (which is not too hard to do). Ruger provides rings with their centerfire rifles and they are good, but the rings on this rifle were muey screwed up. The clamp (the bolt with the angled head) on the front ring was mangled, and both the nut and the clamp were gunked up with some sort of adhesive (probably Loctite, but who knows). I think what had happened was the clamp could be tightened on the mangled part of the clamp’s angled surface. The buggered-up clamp was not properly positioned in the mounting surface and the caked-on adhesive compounded the felony. Under recoil, the forward ring was moving around.

A Ruger scope ring. Ruger provides two of these with each of their centerfire rifles.

The Ruger scope ring clamp. It’s a bolt with an angled surface (denoted by the right arrow) that clamps onto a machined crescent on the rifle’s scope mounting surface. The threads on mine were caked with an adhesive.

The Ruger scope ring nut. It’s what threads on to the clamp shaft in the photo above.

The Ruger No. 1’s forward scope ring. This was not firmly mounted because the clamp had been damaged by Bubba gunsmithing. God must love Bubbas; He sure made a lot of them.

I recut the clamp ‘s angled surface with a file to eliminate the mangled portion and reblued the clamp using Birchwood Casey Cold Blue, and I wire-brushed as much of the adhesive as I could from the clamp’s threaded shaft with a bore brush. I then worked the clamp into the nut until I cleaned out the remaining adhesive on the nut. I reinstalled the ring and satisfied myself that this time it was secure.

The Bushnell Banner box. The scope was nicely packaged.

The Bushnell Banner’s parallax adjustment ring. These really work.

The Bushnell Banner’s quick adjust focusing rear ring. It’s a nice feature.

The Bushnell Banner’s adjustment knobs after their covers had been removed. These have a nice feel, with a distinct tactile click for each 1/4-inch adjustment. You don’t need any tools to make these adjustments. It’s first class.

When my new 4×12 Bushnell Banner scope arrived a few days after I ordered it on Amazon, I was impressed with its appearance. I even liked the box. I looked through the scope and was impressed with its optical clarity. These inexpensive Banner scopes have continued to improve over the years, and this one looks great.

The Bushnell Banner’s operator’s manual. It contains basic information about mounting and boresighting the scope.

The Bushnell scope has a lifetime warranty and it came with what I thought was an impressively thick operating manual. The manual is printed in five languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish), so it was only one fifth as thick as it first appeared to be. But it was still a good manual. The scope also came with lens covers, which is a nice touch.

The Bushnell has other features that are important to me. It has a quick focus ring at the rear to focus the reticle, and it has a parallax adjustment feature on the objective end (the front of the scope). Parallax adjustment has become increasingly important to me; it minimizes the scope’s susceptibility to slightly different eye positions. You adjust for parallax by moving your eye around and making sure the reticle stays centered on the target.

The Bushnell has removable windage and elevation adjustment dial covers, and windage and elevation adjustment can be made by hand (no special tools are required). Each click represents 1/4-inch of movement on a 100-yard target, which is pretty much the standard on scopes.

The Bushnell has a 40mm objective lens, which I think is about right. It looks right and still allows the scope to be mounted low on the rifle. Some scopes go bigger with 50mm objectives, but I think they look silly. These bugeye scopes have to sit higher on the rifle (which makes sighting through them difficult). Nope, for me a 40mm objective is as big as I care or need to go.

Although I own a boresigting device that mounts on the barrel, I prefer not to use it. The thought of potentially damaging a rifle’s crown, which a boresighting device can do, is not something I want to entertain. I boresight the old-fashioned way: I’ll set the rifle up in a rest, look through the bore (from the breech end) and move the rifle around until a 50-yard target is centered in the bore. Then, without moving the rifle, I’ll adjust the scope’s windage and elevation until the reticle is approximately centered on the target. Once I’ve done that, I’ll fire one shot and see where it hits. I’ve actually done this and had the impact be on the target with that first shot, but it took four shots this time. After each shot, I adjusted the windage and elevation to get the next shot two inches below my point of aim at 50 yards, and then switch to a target at 100 yards to finalize the adjustment.

On the range at the West End Gun Club. The first target is at 50 yards; the second set of targets is at 100 yards. I used the first target for boresighting and initial scope adjustment.

To boresight the scope, you look for the target through the rifle’s bore. It appears to be a little offset in this photo because it was difficult to get the camera aligned with the bore, but you get the idea. You want the target centered when looking through the barrel.

I used PPU (PRVI Partizan) 100-grain jacketed soft point bullets for this round of load development. The Ruger has a 1 twist in 10 inches rate. A 100-grain bullet is right at the edge of stability with this twist rate; lighter bullets should be more accurate.

Another shot of the PPU 100-grain bullets. There’s a long bearing area on that bullet.

I used two propellants for this test series: IMR 7828 and IMR 4166. The IMR 4166 performed better than the IMR 7828 load and it reduced the copper fouling in the bore.

For this outing, I had loaded two groups of .243 ammo, both using PRVI Partizan 100-grain jacketed soft point bullets. One load had 43.0 grains of IMR 7828 propellant; the other group had 34.5 grains of IMR 4166 propellant. I used the IMR 4166 ammo last. IMR 4166 was one of those new powders that is supposed to not leave copper deposited in the rifling (I’ll explain why I used the past tense in a second). I wanted to use it to minimize the cleaning after shooting the rifle.

So how did it all work? The IMR 7828 load didn’t perform well as the IMR 4166 load. The IMR 7828 load was shooting 2 1/2 to 4-inch groups. Part of that was due to the Ruger’s twist rate (1 in 10), which is marginal for a heavy (for the .243) 100-grain bullet. But I was surprised with the last group of the day, which was with IMR 4166 powder.

The last shots of the day, and the last of the loads with IMR 4166 propellant.

Four of the five shots went into 0.889 inch; the fifth shot opened the group up to 1.635 inches. That fact that the IMR 4166 grouped much better might be due to the fact the propellant may have removed some of the copper fouling (it appeared to have a lot less copper fouling when I cleaned the rifle later), it might be due to the fact that IMR 4166 is a faster powder compared to IMR 7828, it might have been me, or it might be a statistical fluke. You might think this would push me to develop a load with IMR 4166, but unfortunately the powder has been discontinued (I’m on my last bottle). Future load development work for this rifle will be with lighter bullets and other powders with burn rates similar to IMR 4166. Varget comes to mind. I’ll keep you posted.

I know, I’m digressing again. I started out with the intent to do a product review on the Bushnell Banner 4×12 scope, which I think I did, but I morphed into a bit of load development work for the .243 Ruger No. 1. On my intended topic: The Bushnell Banner is a great scope, and it performs way beyond what it’s sub-$100 price would indicate (I paid $72 for mine on Amazon). If you’re looking for a good low-priced scope, the Bushnell is hard to beat. I like it so much I’m going to by another one for another Ruger, but that’s a story for another time.

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An Unfired NIB Liberty Model 77

By Joe Berk

The Ruger Model 77 rifle goes back to 1968. It gave Ruger a place in the centerfire hunting rifle class, and like the Remington Model 700 and Winchester Model 70 it would compete against, it outdid both by using the lucky number 7 twice in its name. The Model 77 is a good-looking bolt action rifle based on the Mauser design, with a classic walnut stock designed by famed custom rifle builder Lenard Brownell. I’ve owned several Model 77 Rugers, including this new-in-the-box .30 06 Liberty gun. I’d like to be able to tell you how accurate it is, but I can’t. I’ve never fired it. Nor has anyone else, other than the person who test fired it before it left the factory.

Every firearm Ruger manufactured in 1976 carried this inscription.

There’s no lawyer’s warning on the barrel about reading the instructions. We call these “pre-warning” guns. They were made in a time when people had more common sense.

The Liberty designation mentioned above refers to the “Made in the 200^th Year of American Liberty” roll marking on the barrel, which was a feature Ruger had on all its guns made in 1976. I bought the rifle in El Paso that year (I was in the Army stationed at Fort Bliss). This one has every thing that came with the rifle (the original serial numbered box, the scope rings and their blue cloth bag, the instructions, and the warranty card). It’s a brand new, unfired, almost-50-year-old rifle.

The tang safety Model 77 is considered more desireable.

The original box. The cardboard held up surprisingly well. This gun is new in the box (NIB) and this is the original box.

The box is serialized to the rifle. I obliterated the last number, which almost makes it look like the serial number matches the chambering.

You know, Rugers (and most guns, for that matter) were different 50 years ago. The bluing was deeper, the checkering was hand cut (and way better than the laser cut fuzzball checkering you see today), and the guns just felt better. This Ruger is like that. It’s immaculate, and there’s only safe ding on the stock. Other than than, there’s not a mark, dent, ding, gouge, scratch, or (Heaven forbid) spot of rust anywhere on the rifle. Even the anodized aluminum floorplate is pristine.

The Ruger Model 77 MSRP was $169.50 in 1976 and I believe I paid something like $139 for this one. I probably have the original receipt for it somewhere. A new Ruger Hawkeye in .30 06 (the rifle the Model 77 evolved into) lists for $1399 (yep, ten times what I paid in 1976), but a new one is not as cool as the one you see here.

Plain walnut, but elegant in its own way.

The unmarred anodized aluminum floorplate.

Early Ruger Model 77s wore this grip cap.

Check out this gorgeous hand cut checkering. You don’t see that too much today!

The rifle’s sole safe ding, done by yours truly. Nobody’s perfect. It will steam out. I’m leaving it like this.

God’s cartridge. The .30 06 is one of the all time greats.

This rifle may be going on the block soon. It’s time to start downsizing the armory and it’s time for someone else to enjoy owning it. You’re probably wondering how much I’m going to ask for it. So am I. As I look at this magnificent example of 1970s firearm manufacturing and post these photos, I’m having second thoughts. It is a .30 06, and that’s God’s cartridge. Maybe it needs to send a few rounds downrange, and maybe I’m the guy to do it. We’ll see.

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More Tales of the Gun!

Catching up and what’s coming up!

Snacks at an engineering seminar in Singapore. Those are hard-boiled quail eggs and they were good!

I’m back after a 3-day hop over to Singapore, and it’s good to be home. I thought I’d do sort of a catchall blog to mention a bunch of things. For starters, Singapore was fun (it always is), but that 15-hour time change is a bear. I was over there to teach a class, something I do two or three times a year. They treat me well in Singapore and I love traveling to Asia. I think I’m back on California time already, thanks to keeping an altered sleep schedule while I was in Asia and a good sleeping pill that let me sleep through the night last night. If you’ve never been to Singapore, you might want to add it to your bucket list. It’s one of the world’s great places.

I kept up (as many of you did) with Joe Gresh’s Endurofest fun in Flagstaff, and it looks like the only downside to that adventure was his good buddy Hunter crashed and cracked a bunch of ribs. Hunter, we’re thinking of you. Get well soon.

At the spot where Joe’s buddy Hunter crashed. He got through it with six broken ribs. Ouch!

And speaking of cracking things, you’ll remember the story on my .257 Weatherby Ruger No. 1 cracking its Circassian walnut stock and me shipping it back to the factory. I called Ruger, but I still don’t have an update on the fix. They were supposed to get back to me later today, but it’s already later today so I expect I won’t hear anything until tomorrow or Monday. I’ve got a bunch of .257 Weatherby brass polished and primed, and I’ve got the Barnes monolithic copper bullets my good buddy Mississippi Dave recommended. I’m eager to get that rifle back and continue the load development for it.

A 200th year Ruger 77 in 7×57. You’d think with all those 7s I’d get lucky, but I haven’t found a way to get tight groups yet. I’m working the problem.

In the meantime, I’ve been playing with a beautiful 43-year-old Ruger Model 77. It’s a 200th year Ruger in a very classy chambering, the 7×57, which is the old Spanish Mauser cartridge. I bought it used in 1977 and it is in pristine condition, and I think I know why the previous owner sold it. It doesn’t group worth a damn. But that makes it more fun (half the fun with these things is searching for a good load). Stay tuned, because if I ever find a decent load, you can be sure there will be a blog on this one.

The carb on my TT250 is gummed up and it won’t idle. That’s not the bike’s fault. It’s mine. I sometimes go months between rides on that bike, and that’s what happened here. I’ll take the carb apart to clean out the passageways, and when I do, I’ll photodocument the approach so you can see how I go about it. I’ll have to re-read the tutorial I did for CSC Motorcycles on the TT250 carb first. These bikes are super easy to maintain, and they have to be one of the best deals ever on a new motorcycle.

Hey, another cool motorcycle deal…my good buddy Ben recently published a book titled 21 Tips For Your First Ride South Of The Border (and it’s free). You can download it here.

Let’s see…what else? Oh yeah, we have a bunch of stuff in the blog pipeline for you. There’s the Yoo-Hoo product review (we haven’t forgotten about that one). There’s a very cool watch company (Gear’d Hardware) that follows the ExNotes blog, and they recently sent two watches to us for review. The review will appear here in the near future. That’s good; we’ve been meaning to start a watch review series and this will get the ball rolling.

A Gear’d Hardware watch, one of two Gresh and I will review for you here on the ExhaustNotes blog.

More good stuff: I’ve been playing with another Ruger No. 1 chambered in yet another Weatherby cartridge (the mighty .300 Weatherby), and I’ll be posting a blog about that soon. Another product review that’s coming up is one on turmeric, the dietary supplement that’s supposed to work wonders for arthritis. I don’t have arthritis, but that crash I had on my Speed Triple 10 years ago has bothered me mightily for the last decade, and taking turmeric is getting it done for me. I don’t normally believe in these supplement wonder pills, but folks, it’s working. Watch for the blog on this stuff. And we haven’t forgotten about a near-term ride up the Pacific Coast Highway (good buddy TK and I have been talking about that one).